Load banks are an integral part of a test environment for power generation and distribution products. The primary outputs of a power distribution product are the power feeds for other downstream equipment. Load Banks are used to test distribution equipment by simulating the downstream utilization equipment. Load banks are composed of multiple loads to simulate the many loads the power generation and distribution products will supply power to. Load banks dissipate significant amounts of heat from the test environment, and require substantial amounts of input energy available to the test environment.
To properly test the capacity of the unit under test, the load bank should represent that load characteristics that will be observed by the unit under test while in service. The energy delivered to a load bank is dissipated, as heat, back into the environment. A unit under test with many outputs can distribute tens-of-kilowatts of power or more. This power is wasted in several ways. Unless the unit under test is distributing AC utility power from the “mains”, the capacity of the source, or feed, power source must be large. The losses from this source can be large. The energy delivered to the loads is wasted as heat. A facility containing the test facilities may be air-conditioned. Pumping this wasted heat out of the building to cool the facility will waste additional energy.